20 April 2024, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2348: pedestrian crossing

Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay

Mrs. Velma Stepforth got a buzz on her phone and checked it – it was a text message from a family member with an article attached from the previous day.

Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr. stopped what he was doing when he heard his wife's low, grim chuckle. It had cost him ten years of a marriage to ignore that sound relative to his excuses for not having time to invest in the marriage. Those chuckles and the accepting remarks had not been enough of a clue for him not to get blindsided with divorce papers – so he knew someone was in trouble, and that was confirmed by what his wife said on the phone to the next person she talked with.

“We told y'all – until you do right by Donna, everything you people touch is going to turn to dust! We've been petitioning for a proper four-way stop at that pedestrian crossing for twenty years – she and countless others could have been safe, but no: you don't care about dark-skinned people, and now you are out there on tape, saying it to the world. We don't want your apologies! We want you to experience the full consequences of your actions now, and so go bankrupt and get out of the way of a company that will do the right thing with the county and get that proper stop done in the near future. No, sir, we don't care about you, because you don't care about Donna and all the other people that were hurt or killed there. I called to tell you: go sit down somewhere!”

Donna Moore was Mrs. Stepforth's niece, tragically killed in a pedestrian crosswalk. Justice of a kind had overtaken those who had not cared to correct the unsafe configuration.

Mr. Stepforth found his wife sobbing with her head in her hands, and was relieved when she turned to him for comfort. Grace had overtaken them, and specifically him.

“All we gotta do now is get the right people in office in November, and the county will have the people in place to hire the right company,” he said to his wife when she had calmed down. “The wrong people are out!”

“Just gotta keep praying and getting our folks to the polls,” she said. “Local matters count!”

He also would buy up the next six eligible companies the county had on its list to subcontract to for such jobs … but she hated him throwing out a money solution, and so he just held her and kept that part to himself until it was done.